1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a refrigerator, and more particularly, to a cooling air flow passage in a refrigerator. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a cooling air flow passage of a refrigerator capable of improving the operational efficiency and simplifying the structure of the refrigerator by allowing cooling air to be efficiently supplied to and used at an ice making unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
An ice making unit for making ice is attached to the inside of a refrigerator and makes ice of an adequate size for providing to a user. Also, as users' tastes are recently becoming more luxury-oriented, there is an increasing trend for a refrigerator to have a built-in type ice maker mounted to its in side.
Furthermore, a refrigerator has a self-contained water dispensing passage for allowing water that is obtained from an outside source to be cooled and dispensed directly to a user via a water dispenser. For this purpose, the refrigerator has a water tank in its predetermined position, and a water tank cooling unit for cooling the water accommodated in the water tank.
However, since separate cooling air flow passages are needed to supply the cooling air that has been cooled in an evaporator to an ice making unit and a water dispenser according to the prior art, the structure of the cooling air flow passages in a refrigerator is complicated.
Furthermore, since the structure of the cooling air flow passages are complicated, the thickness of a refrigerator's walls increases, thereby reducing the area available for foodstuff storage and thus increasing the overall size of the refrigerator.
Also, because of the complications of the cooling air flow passage's structure, cooling air loss is increased during transfer of the cooling air and resultantly energy efficiency is deteriorated.
Moreover, when a refrigerator employs separate rooms for refrigerating and freezing, and an ice making unit and a water tank are built inside the refrigerating room, the problems of reduced storage space and increased cooling air loss become severe.